During the morning of October 31, 1989 I received a phone call at my office in Auberge de Castille from the US ambassador to Malta, Sally Novetzke, telling me she wanted to see me urgently and that the USSR ambassador would accompany her.

I gave them an appointment for 5.30 p.m., but she said 'that's too late' and that the meeting had to take place before 4 p.m. Since it was urgent, I accommodated them.

Soviet ambassador Vladimir Yaplechko said they had come on behalf of their respective presidents, who had asked whether I would welcome George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev if they met in Malta. Without hesitation, I said: 'With open arms.'

When I asked why the matter was so urgent, they said the two countries had to issue a statement about the summit at noon New York time, that would be 6 p.m. Malta time. However, they had once concern: 'You can expect at least 3,000 or 4,000 journalists coming over to Malta - do you have enough hotels?'

My reply was that we'll fix it somehow and Richard Cachia Caruana, who was my personal assistant at the time, got to work on that straight away and sorted it out.

The countries' joint statement came out and I went to Parliament. I spoke to then Opposition leader Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici and told him this was an opportunity for our country. He intially said he agreed, but soon after started making statements that this could prejudice Malta, particularly in terms of neutrality, because it meant that military vessels would have to enter our waters. He insisted they had to assure us there were no nuclear arms on board and this led to rumours about demonstrations being held when the summit took place.

As a result, Mr Bush's National Security Adviser, Brent Scowcroft, called me and said the president was reluctant to pay a courtesy call on me because there would be hostile demonstations. I assured him there would not be any demonstrations at any place where the two presidents would be. He then passed me on to Mr Bush and I reassured him too.

During the event everything went well and I think everybody was impressed by how efficient we were. I met Mr Bush on the morning of December 2, 1989, and Mr Gorbachev arrived at 11 p.m., fresh from a meeting in Rome with Pope John Paul II.

I met the Soviet leader at the airport and we made our way to my office in a car provided by the Russians. It was quite remarkable as people lined St Anne Street in Floriana and, despite the fact it was late, there was a huge crowd outside Castille. Everyone was cheering and he immersed himself in the crowd, shaking hands with everyone he met.

Scowcroft said afterwards that they ended up coming here because they couldn't agree on where to meet.

We managed to fix everything apart from the weather, though I was saying before we knew the end result that the storm was a very good omen for the talks. I have no doubt it was the most important summit since Yalta in 1945 between Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt."